


If You Were the Ocean

by LetThereBeDestiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: !!!, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Bad Jokes, Comedy, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Falling In Love, Fluff, Goofy Dean Winchester, M/M, Ocean, Pirate AU, Pirates, Romance, Sarcastic Castiel, Treasure Hunting, takes place in the 1800s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 16:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15393150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetThereBeDestiel/pseuds/LetThereBeDestiel
Summary: Castiel's new life begins with falling in the captivity of the weirdest pirate ship he's ever seen. He expects its crew to give him a slow and torturous death. Instead, he finds the most ridiculous and brave person in its captain.This is a story of a wonderful treasure, of adventure, of bravery - but most of all, it's a story of true love.





	If You Were the Ocean

**Author's Note:**

> To Amanda  
> Just… Don’t ever change.  
> This is always meant to make you laugh.
> 
> And a shoutout to Lindsey, who has the unnatural ability to look at big spiders and not shit her pants. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.

 

Castiel didn’t quite know how he got himself into this situation. Stumbling backwards on a wavering ship that has long sailed away from New England, he held a silver sword in his one hand and a shorter, three-faced blade in the other as half a dozen men in blue uniforms pointed their fancy bullet spitters at him.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” said the colonel, loading his pistol. “Now, don’t make me do something I, quite frankly, want to do.”

Castiel examined the men surrounding him, their steady arms aimed forward, their sturdy build. A wave crashed into the ship, making it tip slightly to the left. In the slightest of motions, a foot slid a couple of inches down the deck, compelling its owner to lose balance.

Castiel was a lightning. At once, he swung his sword and knocked the stumbling man’s gun out of his hand. He threaded his shorter blade into the trigger guard of another man and yanked it into the air.

“I won’t,” he responded, his brows dropping and his eyes turning dark as the four remaining pistols were being loaded. He knelt smoothly and rolled over behind a barrel, loud gunshots following his footsteps and leaving a ringing emptiness in his ears.

“Ship!” Someone yelled from the forecastle deck. “It’s getting close!”

Castiel ran a hand through his hair and glanced over the barrel, ducking quickly when a few more gunshots followed his motion. He needed to assess the situation, and he had to do so quickly: the ship was swaying with the movements of the ocean and his egg-shaped cover was sealed, with no way of telling what was inside it. He suspected it might be gunpowder. If so, he had to move away.

He scanned his close surroundings quickly, the ringing in his ears giving way to his own heavy breathing and the yellings of soldiers on deck. A new surge of men hurried up from the stomach of the ship, ready to attack. He just needed a diversion, anything to distract his pursuers…

And there it was: a canvas bag of flour. He grabbed a handful and threw it with force over his head.

More gunshots in the floury fog. He stood up. Walked straight into the white cloud, lifting his blades, and threw them forward smoothly. They hit two men.

Reaching the now-expanded pack of troopers, he punched a man’s nose and used the leverage to fleetly envelope the guy’s neck with his elbow, twisting his arm until he felt a snap. Then he bent and yanked his blades back into his possession. When he straightened up, he found that he was cornered.

“Nowhere to run,” the colonel continued, gesturing with head at the open sea behind Castiel’s back. Castiel glanced backwards out of instinct.

The colonel was wrong.

If Castiel had the time to stop and chitchat, he would spit out a sentence along those lines: ‘the greatest mistake a man can make is believing he is the subject of another man’s loyalty when he is not’. But he was in a bit of a rush. So he ran.

Behind him, the sail spread along the back side of the ship and out into the open – and tied to it, some few feet outside the ledges of the ship, was a length of rope.

A rope that might just be long enough to swing onto a ship that was heading their direction at an alarming speed.

The soldiers watched with confusion behind him. He couldn’t see the colonel reaching out with an absent minded motion and lowering the gunbarrel of his comrade, but the lack of booming shots behind his shoulder was equally relieving as it was alarming. He ran along the quarter deck and lunged, only barely managing to cling onto a spreader in the mast. His legs desperately searched for something more solid than air to land on and only found the wind in response. The group of men behind him gaped, their weapons slowly slipping out of their hands. They didn’t quite understand Castiel’s plan to somehow escape the ship alive, but they were clearly skeptical he’d succeed.

Reaching the end of the spreader, Castiel reached out for the rope and held onto it, muttering a prayer through clenched teeth. “God, please don’t drop me.”

And he let go of the pole, swinging into the open air. It felt like flying: the wind ruffling his hair, puffing his clothes, scattering around the flour that still stuck to his skin. For a moment, the wind shrieked wildly in his ears – at least, he thought it was the wind, since it would take quite the determination for a human being to utter the sound – and then his face slammed hard into something concrete. The collision pushed him back into the open air, before he swung back and the solid material stroke again.

He reached the other boat; only about twenty feet lower than he’d intended.

Meanwhile, the dough-heads chasing him must have realized he was making his slow path towards an escape, because the booming shots were back. He climbed up the rope, the scent of turquoise salt water mixing with gunpowder in each strenuous breath he took, until he reached the margin of the deck and rolled onto it.

He lay on the floor, breathing heavily, and let his head drop on the damp floorboards. His eyes caught a glimpse of the bright blue sky far above him.

He was safe.

“Ah-ha!” Out of the blue, the sky was blocked by a wide-shouldered figure and Castiel found his nose in an uncomfortably short distance from the tip of a sword.

“Who shalt dare to invade upon my ship!” The figure announced, as a matter of fact more than anything else. Castiel squinted at it, unable to make a face out of the shadowed character. The sun was right in his eyes.

“Who!” The figure roared when it was met with silence. Castiel could tell it was a man, and that the outline of his hair was short and spiky. He squinted harder.

“Tell me who!” The man demanded. Castiel lifted a hand and tried to gently shove the sword further away from his face, but the grip of the hand on the other end of it was too steady. It didn’t move an inch.

He tried for a different strategy.

“Castiel,” he said, clearing his throat. The silver blade positioned steadily between his eyes made him uncomfortable.

“Castiel?” The man wondered, squinting back at him. “Is that French?”

Castiel hesitated.

“No?”

Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the brightness of the sun in his face, and the features of the man standing above him were finally becoming visible. He was young, maybe thirty years old, with chiseled-like features and a few days’ old bristles. But the sculpted, sun-freckled face didn’t help his appearance: Castiel was beholding the most intimidating man he has ever seen.

You must understand: he’s lived all his life in a bourgeois town, and spent the last half of his life in the royal garrison. And every guard, warrior, and court jester in the royal garrison had a particularly long royal stick far up between his buttocks.

The man currently holding a sword to his breathing canals was everything but a bourgeois with a wedged bottom. He was wearing airy clothes, smeared and stained, and through the slit of his parted lips were visible more than a few golden teeth. One of his eyes was covered with an eyepatch, the other green like spring Virginian hills and burning with spunk.

Castiel glanced at their surroundings. Perhaps he was too distracted by the giant man, or maybe they took some time to gather round, but he only now noticed they had company.

A bunch of it.

Surrounding him and the sworded man were about two dozen people… if he could describe them as such. They were wearing tattered clothes and black tricorns, holding backswords and daggers, all looking at him with befuddlement that didn’t match their exterior appearance at all.

Pirates. He was surrounded by pirates.

Great.

At that moment, one of them – a big one, even taller than the one with the sword – stepped up and whispered something in the sworded one’s ear. The smaller man shook his head.

“Behold, my crew!” He roared, looking round. “We have captured a…” His voice fell a few degrees in volume, and he glanced at Castiel again. “What are you?”

“A soldier,” Castiel answered grudgingly. He was afraid there was no good wisdom in arguing with a man that’s holding a sharp object at your breathing canals.

“A soldier!” The man announced loudly. “A soldier who is not French!”

The crowd let out some restrained cheers, but mostly remained quiet.

“Captured soldier Castiel, you have unwisely stumbled upon-“ and his chest puffed slightly as he uttered the next words- “a pirate ship!”

At that, the crew cheered more enthusiastically, although Castiel spotted the taller man crossing his hands against his chest, sourly excluding himself from the whooping crowd.

“I’ve noticed that,” Castiel muttered, closing his eyes for a moment. His head was pounding, and as the adrenaline of escaping the garrison was wearing off, he was starting to feel a pulsing pain in his left arm.

“My name,” the man went on, and Castiel opened his eyes. “Is captain Dean the Sword Winchester.”

Castiel’s lip twisted. “That’s a mouthful. I’m not going to remember it.”

“You can call me the Sword.”

Behind the Sword, a blond lady with a dagger whispered to the tall one, “How long’s this gonna take? I’m hungry.”

“I’m getting there!” The Sword growled and waved his sword at her before the tall one could answer. He turned back to Castiel. “If you wish to live, captured soldier, you must answer one question correctly.”

Castiel suppressed a groan; he hated riddles. This was really not his day.

“Where does the king keep his armies?”

Castiel opened his mouth, then closed it, and then opened it again. And then he closed it.

“Answer the question!” The man demanded, waving his blade in front of Castiel’s face.

“Look, Mr-“

“Captain!” This time, the tip of the sword almost grazed his forehead as the man swung it around.

“Captain Sword,” Castiel reasoned. “I have not eaten in maybe a day, I’m pretty sure I’m dehydrated, this sun is unbelievably bright, and I’m really bad at general knowledge-”

“And you’re bleeding,” the captain added, pointing his sword at Castiel’s aching arm. Castiel looked at it now, and saw a pool of blood collecting on the woodboards right beneath his shoulder. One of the garrison’s bullets must have grazed him when he escaped.

“Perfect,” he grumbled, hitting his head against the floor. That just made his headache worse. “That’s just wonderful.”

“Enough complaining!” The captain called. “Answer the question, or prepare to perish!”              

There was no point in hoping for the best. His brothers in arms might have deemed him a traitor, but no amount of torture would make him give up information that will put them in harm’s way. Not in the hands of a one-eyed pirate who calls himself the Sword. A pirate who seemed very much apt for slicing a man’s face.

So he was going to die.

But at least he would die in honor. Pinned to the floor of a pirate ship by another man, in the pool of his own blood and sweat, with about twenty people watching him. Honor.

“Last chance, fancy-pants!” The captain was saying above him. He caught one last glimpse of the sky and shut his eyes.

“Do it.”

He waited.

There was a swoosh of air, a moment of complete silence, and then one muted word.

“Dean.”

Footsteps on the floorboards. A hushed conversation.

“Stop it. You’re scaring him.”

“Soldiers don’t have fear in ‘em, Sammy. Just a well shoved-up stick.”

“You’re not gonna kill the guy.”

“Ain’t I?”

Another voice interfered; a woman.

“We can save him for next time we get to shore. Crowley always knows a place to take care of ‘em. Now, can we get a move on? Jo’s hungry, and I could really go for a steak right now.”

“We have steak?”

The taller one’s voice, again. “Dean. Concentrate.”

“Alright! We’ll finish it off.” A light click – a snap of fingers. “You. Open your eyes at once! Sammy, help me tie him up. As for everyone else, you’re off the hook. Literally. Save me the biggest steak.”

A sigh of relief went through the crowd like a wave. And then something quite bemusing happened: everyone scattered in different directions, taking off their hats as they slumped onto a stool or undid their shirts. Some took a hook off their seemingly perfectly functioning hands. The tall one kicked off his boots. The captain himself, to Castiel’s bewildered eyes, took off his eyepatch to reveal an eye just as good for sight as the other, and spat the gold out of his mouth. He had the whitest teeth Castiel has seen on an adult man.

No one seemed to find any of this strange, or felt the need to explain to their new captive what in the cold hell was happening.

Having spat all his fake teeth out, the captain turned around. Before he stepped away, though, someone touched his arm – the woman. Castiel took a closer look at her and found that she was younger than he’d estimated – twenty five at most. Five years younger than himself, if not more. She had flowing red hair and seemed to be the only one, exclude the tall one and the Sword himself, who was carrying a pistol.

“Wait,” she whispered, and the man halted in place. She had an impact on him, Castiel registered to himself. That information might be useful in the future. He took the few moments of relative freedom to sit up cautiously, trying his best to ignore the pain in his arm, and instead focusing on the one in his head.

“What’s the answer?” The girl asked in a hushed voice. “To the riddle? Where does the king keep his armies?”

The captain grinned, an impish sort of smile. Now that his odd masquerade was off, he seemed much more like regular folk than he did a raging pirate. His eyes, both intact now, shone like jade stones in the sun.

He leaned in over the redhead’s shoulder and whispered: “up his sleevies.”

At that, Castiel let out a huff of air. “You can’t be serious,” he groaned. “What kind of pirate ship _is_ this?”

The captain pretended to ignore him, or maybe didn’t hear his mutters altogether. He flashed another smile at the girl, brighter than before, and turned away to grab a piece of rope that lay on a barrel nearby.

Castiel sighed. He was starting to realize he’s gotten himself into quite the exceptional pickle. He was surrounded by idiots, with Captain Dean the Sword Winchester at the top of them.

Soon enough, the captain was back with the rope and the tall one. They each grabbed one of Castiel’s arms and shoved him backwards until he felt the spar of the main mast against his spine. Then they handled the rope, wrapping it widely around Castiel’s chest and the mast. Working perfectly together, without exchanging as much as a word. As if they’d done it a hundred times before. The thought prompted Castiel to stay still, although he was aching to move around in his improvised entrapment. If those men had experience with captives before, there was no sense in trying to escape right now. Especially since he couldn’t see any live captives around.

When they were finished, the captain took a step back to assess their handiwork.

“It’ll be faster to throw me into the sea, you know,” Castiel spat out. The captain smiled.

“Where’s the fun in that?”

But there was something in his eyes. His brows pulled together with concentration, like his mind was already elsewhere. It seemed that despite the threats and the attacks at the air before Castiel’s forehead, he was in no rush to kill. Castiel wondered whether this finding should have him relieved or even more concerned.

The captain didn’t linger on Castiel’s words any longer. He turned around, found the redhead in the crowd and pulled her out of a conversation with the blond one with a look in his eyes that Castiel didn’t catch.

“I’ll get the loot in order,” the tall one said as the redhead approached. The captain nodded.

“Charlie, search him,” he ordered when she came. Her expression turned sour.

“Why me?”

“Well,” the captain raised his hand in a semi-dramatic gesture and flashed one of his bright-eyed grins at Castiel. “I reckon our fancy soldier boy would rather have a good looking chick caress him gently than he would me. Eh, Pumpkin?” He smirked at Castiel.

He was absolutely right.

Castiel’s lip twisted in sync with the redhead’s – Charlie – each for their own reason. Neither of them said a word, though.

Each for their own reason.

Charlie kneeled in front of him and rolled up the sleeves of her white cotton shirt. As promised, she started fondling him. He was sweaty. She was unforgivingly thorough. Overall, a bad experience for both sides.

Castiel resisted the urge to grit his teeth as Charlie stripped him of what few belongings that managed to survive this far along the road with him. She patted his pockets, searched his shoes, and eventually she had on the floor a small pile of whatever little possessions that were supposed to join him in his new life. There was a cartridge of silver bullets, a few gold coins in an old leather purse, a pair of clean underwear – at which the captain squinted with complete befuddlement, and Castiel claimed defensively that good hygiene was very important for a longer and healthier life – and a bundle of documents. Castiel couldn’t stop himself from looking at the pile, his body tensing. He barely saw anything past it, barely heard anything above the blood pumping hard behind his ears, and yet he knew the captain was watching him with an expression as sealed and cold as blue steel.

“Charlie, go through this crap. I want a report by tomorrow morning,” the captain said quietly. His deliberate tone was very clearly not directed at the redhead: _I’m watching you._

Castiel’s eyes followed the pile as it was picked up and taken away. The secret that kept him alive in some ways and sentenced his death in others, taken out of his control. His fate out of his hands once again.

As the captain watched him, not a single muscle in Castiel’s face twitched.

 

* * *

 

 (If you can't see the art, click [here](https://i-like-scaring-homophobes.tumblr.com/post/184850075659/finally-posting-properly-this-amazing-art-my).)

* * *

 

 

“You’re an odd one, y’know,” Dean said perkily as he sat down beside Castiel, resting a bandage and a bottle of iodine on the floor between them. “Gimme your arm.”

Castiel wrinkled his nose, both at the exclamation and at the request. “I’ll pass. Thanks.”

Dean let out a huff gently colored with irritation. “What, you’re afraid to stain your precious royal skin with the filthy touch of a badass pirate killer?”

Castiel’s shoulders straightened at that, the movement sending a piercing pain through the muscles in his arm, but his head rose proudly with no trace of that pain in his eyes. “I have nothing royal in me.” He suspected the guy’s self entitled nickname was somewhat of an exaggeration, too. “I don’t trust you, though.”

Dean squinted at him. He squinted harder.

“Welp – too bad you don’t have a choice, then,” he shrugged. He tore Castiel’s sleeve and started treating the wound, wiping the blood with a questionable-looking rag.

“Why are you providing me with medical attention?” Castiel asked sourly. He didn’t sound grateful at all. Dean’s fingers were gentler on his aching arm than he’d expected them to be. He didn’t know what to make of that.  
“Well, our committee sat down just now while your shirt was absorbing plasma. There was a lot of arguing, and I objected, naturally, but it was decided that you will be treated as a human being. Or whatever.” There was the bright-eyed, careless grin again as he applied the disinfectant to the wound and started wrapping the bandage around it. “No one offered to give you their clothes, though, so it seems like your spare pair of undies will be put to good use.”  
 “Who’s a part of this committee?” Castiel asked. His tone was still sour out of habit, but his question was more genuine than he cared to expose. He hadn’t realized pirates had justice systems and the like. It was almost impressive to find that such a barbaric group was capable of something so… civilized.

Dean’s eyes fell to the ground for a moment, as he mumbled, “…me.”

Never mind what he just thought. This was a dictatorship run by a buffoon.

He took time to think about the implications of this, though.

“You just tried to kill me with a sword,” he countered eventually, while Dean pulled and tied the ends of his bandage together.

“The committee has spoken!” Dean exclaimed with in same dramatic outburst as before. As if that was a perfectly good answer to Castiel’s argument, or perhaps an assurance that a sensible answer will not be provided, he patted Castiel’s injured shoulder and stood up.

“Off… To lunch!”

And he was gone from sight in seconds.

The rest of the day passed just as uncomfortably. Admittedly, no one was chasing him, shooting at him, pointing a sword at him or numbing his mind with their delusions of grandeur, but it was hot and bright and humid, and while the pain in Castiel’s arm abated his head pounded twice has hard.

Everyone stared, but no one seemed to give him real attention aside from the redhead, Charlie, who brought him a small jug of water every few hours.

“How’s your arm?” She asked once. Castiel nodded curtly out of habit; even back home, he’s never been chatty.

“I won’t say anything, you know,” he muttered before she left. She turned back to him, her confusion dissolving when she saw his steadfast expression.

“Oh, we don’t torture for information anymore,” she said dismissively. “Stopped after the accident back in eighteen twenty… Well, you really don’t wanna hear _that_ story.”

“Why has no one thrown me off board yet, then?” He grumbled. It sounded almost like a complaint.

Charlie smirked. The expression was beautiful, her eyes warm. “Dean likes to put on a show, but he’s just bluffing. Work gets tedious out here, you know. He gets so excited when in between all the killing and the gold he actually gets to live out an adventure.”

She said it, _all the killing and the gold,_ as though neither of those held a significant importance. Castiel stared at her, even more confused than he was before, but she seemed to find her own response perfectly logical.

“He’ll come around eventually and stop threatening to kill you,” she said, shrugging. “Would help if you weren’t so grumpy.”

And then she was on her way.

 

Come night, the temperature dropped. Having listened to the chatter of the crew all day, Castiel caught a few other names – Crowley, Balthazar, Ash, Jess. Everyone seemed to have a task which, to Castiel’s bewilderment, they carried out willingly, but more baffling was the way they blindly followed the man who called himself their captain. He barely had to say a word and they were there – some without hesitation, some grudgingly, but it was clear as day: the man was a leader.

As the sun shimmered deep red on the surface of the ocean, the crowd dulled out. A few of them – the captain along with the tall one and the redhead, who seemed to be his seconds in command – climbed up the mast and fiddled with some ropes that changed the angles of the sails. Castiel couldn’t see exactly what they were doing – his range of vision was limited to the stern of the ship, but even if he could, it wouldn’t help him much. He was at sea, in the middle of nowhere in the most literal sense, and he would most likely never see land again.

 

The first thing that braced Castiel the next morning was an icy spray of water.

He looked around, disoriented. His whole body was sore, his head aching only slightly less than it did the previous day. It was a bright morning, but he wasn’t blinded by the piercing sun. Something was above him, blocking the light. He squinted upwards and met another pair of eyes.

Dean.

“Rise ‘n shine, Soldier Boy,” he grinned, letting an empty bucket drop from his hand onto the floor. Castiel stared at it.

“Why… did you… splash me?”

“Me?” Dean demanded, dropping to the floor himself with one smooth movement and crossing his legs. “It was the sea!” He pointed a finger at the ocean. Castiel’s expression was more than skeptical.

The captain wasn’t too jarred by Castiel’s disbelief in his accusation. It seemed like the fact that Castiel was tied securely against a pole gave his capturer the feeling that he had the upper hand. He shuffled closer to Castiel, examining his face for a long moment. Castiel swayed uncomfortably. He could feel Dean’s breath on his skin, and he thanked God for apparently giving these pirates awareness for dental hygiene.

“Please don’t do that,” he muttered quietly, and Dean’s eyes locked on his for a short moment. Then he leaned back and started undoing the bandage around Castiel’s arm.

“You look like death,” he said gaily. The man had a weird sense of humor.

Castiel watched Dean clumsily treat his wound, his posture laid back. It must have been early in the morning – the sun was already bright, but the only person on the deck besides them was the dark eyed blond, who stood quietly at the helm. Maybe that was why Dean was so relaxed, his movements mindless and his lips parting as he concentrated. The grandiose mask was gone.

“I need to stretch my legs,” Castiel said, watching him. Dean’s only response was a snort. Castiel grit his teeth. “You can’t possibly believe I could hurt you without any weapon.”

“Honey Bear, I wouldn’t trust you with a ballpen,” Dean replied.

Damn it. The guy was smarter than he looked.

Moments later Dean was finished, and he leaned on his palm to get up.

“Dean?” Castiel asked. He stopped mid-air, pouting.

“Captain Sword.”

Now it was Castiel who frowned. “I’d honestly rather you stab me in the neck than having to call you that.”

“Gee, alright,” Dean retreated. In a lower voice, almost a mutter, he added, “drama queen.” Then his expression changed entirely and he was smiling again. There was something so childlike about it, as if he knew he was being silly. Reluctantly, Castiel’s lips pursed into the hint of a smile at the response.

“So, uh, what did you want?” Dean asked, clearing his throat.

Castiel hesitated. He was aching to ask about his belongings, if he was ever going to get them back, and whether the redhead found anything valuable in them. But that would only make Dean more suspicious.

“Do you brush your teeth regularly?” He asked instead.

“Of course,” Dean answered with a scoff, before he turned to walk away. “What do you think we are, savages?”

 

The morning passed in slow, agonizing minutes. Seeing the pirates around him at work, singing or pulling practical jokes on each other in the process, was even more frustrating than communicating with them. He wished he could straighten his legs, stretch his aching limbs and pop his joints, run across the deck. Where would he run, he didn’t know. But he needed to be in motion.

He wasn’t sure what the captain’s plans for him were. Dean, and everyone else on the deck, seemed to leave him alone for the time being, but they showed no intention of letting him go. He played Charlie’s words back in his mind. _We can save him for next time we get to shore. Crowley always knows a place to take care of ‘em._ He sighed and counted the implications these words could have. Not that he was too worried; he knew that as soon as the opportunity arose, he could fight his way out of most situations – as he had before.

It was nearing noon when he noticed something was happening. He hadn’t realized it right away – Charlie had approached Dean and spoken to him in quiet and fast words, which wasn’t unusual. She had given him a piece of paper, her eyebrows pulling together in concentration as she explained. He’d examined it for a long moment, and then looked at Castiel.

And that’s when Castiel could tell this time was different.

Dean stuffed the paper in an inside pocket of his shirt and approached him, already wearing his ever present smirk.

As he was approaching, he drew a knife from its sheath in his belt. Castiel gulped, readying himself for whatever lunatic behavior was about to come. He had a feeling he knew what the redhead found in his things, like he’d suspected she would. He didn’t think they’d figure it out so fast, though. Rambunctious, crazy pirates – but apparently, not as dense as they seemed.

In one smooth motion, Dean bent down and tore the rope that had held Castiel in place.

“Get up.”

Castiel stared at him, puzzled by the unapparent motives of releasing him. He didn’t understand – not that, not anything this man did. And that made him cautious.

Dean urged him with a hand gesture. He stood up, his joints popping with relief at the stretch. Crewmembers were beginning to huddle up around them again.

“I owe you an apology, Soldier Boy,” the captain said.

The relief that washed over Castiel was only restrained by his confusion. Why in the hell would Dean untie him, apologize to him? They must not have found it after all. Maybe one of the documents he’d taken with him subdued them, made them wary of others coming after him. He couldn’t think of a document that would scare a pirate into releasing him of custody, but then again, he had quite the stack of papers in his belongings. Had to take everything with him. After all, he wasn’t going back home.

“I’d taken you for a stuck up royal airhead,” Dean continued.

Could he try to escape, now that his arms and legs were free? Could he beat twenty-something armed men and women weaponless?

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Of course he could.

Maybe he _was_ stuck up.

It took him less than a second to assess the man standing before him and the crowd around them, and to make a decision.

He sprang forward, ducking under Dean’s reaching hands, and pulled Dean’s sword from its sheath. Straightening up, he turned round to face Dean, heaving his sword in a wide crescent that would be almost impossible to evade from such short distance.

Dean shuffled out of his range effortlessly.

He clenched his teeth, ducking to dodge Dean’s quick knife blow, and sliced the air in the direction of Dean’s face. Dean parried it with a blade that has been hiding in his boot and, with his free hand, stroke Castiel’s side with force. Castiel’s lungs gave a pained huff, but he didn’t falter. He only stroke harder.

He pulled his sword back and hurled it forward again. When Dean blocked it using both his blades, Castiel drew his fist backwards and then sent it straight to the side of Dean’s face, with force. Dean stumbled backwards, stunned, and Castiel hooked his boot around Dean’s ankle and pulled. Dean dropped to the ground, his blades skidding away from him, Castiel looming above him with his sword.

Behind them, a quiet gasp at Dean’s defeat reminded Castiel that they had an audience. He wondered why none of the crewmembers has come to Dean’s assist yet.

He looked down and pressed his sword against Dean’s throat, but his hand froze. The man’s expression took his by surprise.

Dean was smiling.

“Do it,” he challenged. His tone wasn’t acidic; his eyes shimmered with genuine enjoyment. As if this were all just a game.

Dean waited. Castiel didn’t slash his throat, nor did he lower his sword. Dean gripped his ankle, pulling it with such momentum that Castiel was thrown to the ground, and Dean rolled onto him, trapping one of his hands with his knee. Castiel lifted his other hand to press against Dean’s chest out of instinct to protect himself, although Dean has gotten him in a secure hold against which one arm wasn’t much good.

“As I was saying,” Dean panted, still grinning. He bounced to his feet, pulling Castiel up. “I’d taken you for a stuck up royal airhead, but I never took you for a pirate.”

As if nothing happened. Their crowd seemed to be just as surprised at Dean’s behavior as Castiel himself, but no one said anything.

“A pirate?” Castiel scowled. Dean fumbled in the pocket of his shirt and drew out the piece of paper, the one Castiel had feared he would find. He could see the lines of ink that crossed the page back and forth, lines he’d stared at for months before he finally put the page away along with his past, his home, his loyalty, and moved on into a new life that had begun and seemed that would end on Dean’s ship.

Dean eyed him with an emotion that wasn’t all arrogance now. It was burning in his green eyes, sincere. Curiosity.

“And who other than a pirate would have a treasure map in his possession?”

He unfolded the page, showing it to Castiel, as if he hadn’t seen it a thousand times before. Behind him, Charlie stood with her expression smooth, watching Castiel’s reaction.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Castiel tried, but it was beyond futile.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Dean offered, drawing another knife from his shoe and putting it to Castiel’s throat. “You tell us where the treasure is, and I let you live.”

Where was he getting all those knives from? It seemed that it was impossible to catch that man unprepared. And if he’d had another knife all along, why didn’t he use it when Castiel disarmed him? It occurred to Castiel now that Dean might not have wanted to kill him at all. It made him uneasy, almost as uneasy as knowing he’d had the opportunity, even an invitation, to kill Dean, and he skipped it. He used to be a warrior, an honorable man. He didn’t care for making friends with a pirate.

“No,” he said carefully. The expression on Dean’s face shifted into one that Castiel has learned to recognize.

“Then maybe you’ll care more for your fingers,” he called, grabbing Castiel’s hand and putting it against the railing of the ship , with the fingers splayed out. Castiel gritted his teeth, but didn’t flinch. He’d prepared for that moment, he’d imagined what it’d take for this secret to remain his own. Aside from that, he didn’t think Dean would really cut his fingers off.

“Which one will it be?” Dean mused, brushing his knife along the back of Castiel’s hand. In his eyes was the mad fire again, the only thing in him Castiel attributed to a real pirate. The knife stopped at the base of his thumb. “I grant life’d be more challenging without a thumb.”

Or maybe he was wrong. Maybe Dean would cut his fingers off. Maybe he was as crazy as Castiel first believed him to be – crazy, or driven by avarice.

Was he really so determined to keep his secret from Dean, that he would rather lose a finger for it? Couldn’t he find some way to foil Dean’s plans later, or run away?

What if he couldn’t? Then it’s better if he puts himself at the mercy of a fussy pirate now, than a furious one later.

He took a breath as deep as his lungs would allow, looked at Dean, and waited.

Dean heaved his knife into the air, and then back down, all the while not tearing his eyes from Castiel’s. Castiel’s fingers were cold and oversensitive, as if an electric current was going through them. He felt the air by his face moving as Dean’s arm sliced through it. And then he felt nothing.

It took him breaking eye contact and a downwards glance to realize that Dean had stopped, holding his knife less than an inch from the base of Castiel’s thumb.

He watched Castiel for a long moment. Then he let go of his hand. Perhaps, if Castiel had cried out or let a shiver run through his body, perhaps if his face distorted with terror, he would have remained thumbless already. He hadn’t the faintest idea what was going through Dean’s mind, but when Dean looked at him, he knew it was something in his own eyes that made Dean’s movement falter.

Time froze for a moment.

And then Dean turned around. With a sharp head tilt, he signaled for the redhead and the tall one to follow him. Castiel walked between them and the captain as they descended, for his first time, below the deck and into the belly of the ship.

It was dark inside – Castiel didn’t understand how the wood of the deck blocked the sunrays so thoroughly. There were lamps – torches inside a casing of glass fixed into the wall every few feet, and inside the rooms – small, crammy spaces with cots and bags. Dean stopped at the end of a hallway and entered an oblong room, thrice the size of the sleeping rooms. He stood before a long, rectangular table, and turned to Castiel. Charlie and Sam stood at the entrance, almost at the threshold but still inside the room.

Almost as if they were guarding the exit.

“Listen here, Honey Bear,” Dean said, his voice seeping irony, but calmer and more rational now that they didn’t have much of a crowd. He crossed his arms against his chest. “It’s a simple situation. You’ve got a treasure map, and we’re pirates. I don’t wanna kill you – I really don’t. You’ve got that whole… raw sexual magnetism thing going on. But I’m the Cap here for a reason. I gotta be fair to my people. And being fair in Pirate means…” He shrugged. “Well, gold. Tons of gold. Also chicks. And cheese.” He was beginning to list types of cheese when one of their escorts cleared their throat.

“Yeah,” Dean said shortly. “Anyway, you gotta work along with me here, man.”

Castiel didn’t answer, nor did his piercing expression soften. In his mind, he ran through his options. He knew Dean was right, although he wouldn’t admit it with a knife to his throat; he was outgunned, outmanned. Outnumbered and outplanned. There was no point in getting himself slain trying to keep his secret covert, for it was his own ass that this secret protected.

Dean stepped closer, pointed his palms up as a sign of peace, spoke low and placid. “I’ll give you a share. Twenty five percent, say.”

Without thought, Castiel snorted.

Perhaps there was reason in an alternative plan; give the pirate what he wanted, and buy himself some time.

“Forty?” Dean tilted his head slightly, as though unable to stop himself reacting to the strangeness of a refusal for money.

“I don’t want the gold,” Castiel responded. He paused. Dean waited for him to continue. “I want my freedom. I tell you how to find the gold, and you let me go.”

Dean examined his face for a long moment. Then his arms tightened across his chest.

“No. You’ll show me the way to it. I’ll let you go the moment I have the gold,” he said. “A fair trade. Your life, for my hookers and cheddar.”

 Castiel opened his mouth, but Dean cut him off. “And I won’t keep you prisoner here. You’ll become part of my crew, till we get to the treasure.”

Castiel wrinkled his nose, for what felt like the twentieth time in the past two days. “Become a pirate?”

Dean grinned. “A humbling experience for you, Lord Assbutt.” He looked at the two that stood behind Castiel, raising his eyebrow slightly. From the corner of his eye, Castiel caught the shoulder of the tall one rising into a shrug.

Castiel narrowed his eyes. “You’ll let me walk free on your ship, while just this morning you told me you don’t trust me with a ballpen, after which statement I attacked you and – quite skillfully, if I may say – smacked your cheekbone and then threatened your throat with your own sword?”

From behind them, came a huff – not quite annoyed, but almost… impressed.

“You’ve tried to escape once already, Honey Bear.” Dean’s lips set into his usual smile. “And I defeated you with no problem at all. So you must understand there’s no point in trying to escape again. You’d be a fool to try.”

“Defeated me with _no problem_?” Castiel felt as though his eyes were about to bounce right out of their holes.

“It was a matter of seconds,” Dean shrugged him off, his chin rising.

_“Until I had you on the ground.”_

“Enough!” Dean called. Before Castiel even realized Dean had raised his hand, a knife flew and lodged into the wall several feet behind Castiel, at the level where his forehead had been just a second before he ducked.

“Are you out of your mind?!”

“Decide!” Dean roared. “Or I’ll throw you to the sharks!”

Castiel clenched his teeth. He knew what he must do, although he didn’t like it. And Dean throwing a knife at him didn’t help him like it any better.

“I walk free,” he finally said with a sigh. “After I’ve shown you where the gold is.”

Dean’s eyebrows rose – involuntarily, it seemed. “Really? I offered you half your treasure and-“

“Two fifths, actually-“

“And you turn it down in favor of… nothing.”

Castiel pursed his lips, trying not to appear as a complete idiot. “Yes,” he said firmly. “And I want my things back.”

Dean looked behind him. Someone must have reacted to his stare – his eyes narrowed in the slightest. He measured Castiel for another moment – trying to read his thoughts, to guess his motives. And then he nodded toward Castiel’s right – Charlie. She came to the table and put Castiel’s belongings on it: a few bullet shells, his clean underwear, his documents – where the map, now in Dean’s hands, had been – and his gold. He took the small bag, glancing inside it to make sure none of it was missing – Dean’s brows fell low over his eyes at the movement – and then he stuffed the rest of his belongings into his pockets.

“Now, show me the map.”

 

It wasn’t a map of the traditional sort. In fact, Castiel had never seen a map like this one before it had fallen into his possession. It was a piece of yellowing paper with rows and rows of numbers written on it in ink; 31, 46, 19, 10, 48, 5… On its own, it didn’t look like a map at all.

“I don’t understand,” Dean said, frowning at the page that lay at the center of the table between the four of them.

“Put it against a light.”

Dean picked up the page. He held it close to the lamp that dangled from the ceiling. Slowly, his expression changed.

“Invisible ink,” he said, bewildered. Castiel could barely see it from where he was standing, but he knew what Dean saw: small rings of luminous ink encircling some of the numbers.

“What is it?” Sam asked to Castiel’s left. Before he could answer, Dean lifted his palm as a sign for them to be quiet. He stared at the page for a long moment.

“Coordinates,” he finally said, looking at Castiel for confirmation. His eyes were just as luminous in the dark as the inked circles on the page, and full of an almost tangible fascination. Castiel lost grip of his thoughts for a second.

“Yes,” he said, shifting to look at the table and clearing his throat.

“Where do we start?” The excitement in Dean’s voice was infectious; Castiel could feel it all the way to the tips of his fingers. He kept his eyes on the table, avoiding the enchantment of Dean’s eyes.

“The numbers are in sets of six. They’re nonsequential – there’s no way to know where to start unless you were Carver Edlund himself, or… spent years trying to figure it out.”

He could feel Dean’s eyes on his face then, examining him in the light of what he’d just as well admitted.

“Who-“ Charlie started, but Dean waved his hand dismissively. “He was a lesser-known pirate who managed to hide his fortune for his crew to find after his death. He was so successful in hiding it that barely anyone even tried to find it. No one ever found the map, but it was known to be a cryptic list of numbers.” He looked at Castiel. “Sets of six,” he repeated, holding the paper to the light again. “So there are five locations. How do we know which one’s the first?”

Castiel shifted to stand beside him. “You don’t,” he said, using a pen to copy six numbers onto the back of an envelope that was on the table. He handed the envelope to Dean. “The first set isn’t coordinates; it’s numerology.”

Dean stared at the numbers, mumbling aloud. “Nineteen, nine, eighteen, five… fourteen, nineteen.”

When he looked up, the glint in his eyes was a flare. “Sirens.”

Castiel nodded, unable to help a small smile. “There’s only one place known to man where we can find those.”

Dean looked up at his crewmates. “Turn the ship around. We’re going North.”

Sam huffed, speaking quietly. “Dean, are you sure we can tru-“

“Day’s wasting, Sammy.”

With a mutter, the two shuffled out of the room.

Dean’s eyes didn’t leave the page when they left. He examined the numbers, the quality of the paper, the concealed circles.

Castiel’s mind was faraway from the treasure already. He watched Dean leaning over the table, deep in thoughts, with no trace of the arrogance that showed when he spoke.

He tried something.

“Between us,” he mused, watching Dean’s face. “Would you admit to not have beaten me easily back there?”

“Well, obviously,” Dean said, without looking up. “We were grappling on the floor for like, five minutes.”

Castiel stared at him; he was expecting an argument.

Dean looked up then, smiling. “We’re a good match, aren’t we?”

He wasn’t sure whether Dean was talking about their equal fighting skills or about something else. Dean stuffed the map into his pocket and left the room, clapping Castiel’s back and mumbling about dinner as he went.

 

Castiel turned out to be more help than he thought he could be. During the days on their way to the Siren Islands he followed Dean around on deck – ‘to keep an eye on you’, Dean kept saying, although he didn’t seem to recoil from arming Castiel with knives, ropes, or heavy boxes of precious gems.

They became a team of a sort, with Castiel quietly executing whatever mission at hand, and Dean rambling on while lifting and climbing and pushing with his usual dramatic chatter. They replaced torn ropes, planned route changed to avoid storms and climbed up the mast in search for land – Castiel’s favorite part, secretly, as he enjoyed the wind in his hair and the stunning outstretched landscapes and Dean beside him, with a childlike grin that seemed to never leave his face.

Most of Dean’s crew accepted Castiel, trusting that their captain knew what he was doing; but some were suspicious, eyeing Castiel whenever he was near them, and eyeing Dean just as suspiciously.

He could understand the mistrust towards him. But it was a treacherous decision of Dean to trust the disloyal. Castiel wasn’t sure why it bothered him. 

And all the while, endless questions from Dean. Questions about the treasure, about the garrison, about Castiel’s childhood and home. The curious spark in Dean’s eyes never seemed to fade or weaken. Castiel did his best to pretend he hated those questions.

When they finally saw it, it felt almost like slow motion. Dean was placed comfortably on the spar above him, occasionally throwing a glance downwards to Castiel’s wide-eyed face. And then, in one of the times he was looking back up, he saw something other than the infinite ocean.

“Hey,” he called, catching Castiel’s attention, and pointed at the horizon to the east, on the opposite side of the ocean from the setting sun. Castiel’s eyes narrowed in concentration.

He could see it: a dark gray shadow in the distance, rising up from the water. The shadow materialized as they got closer – it was a collection of high, pointy rocks, like miniature cliffs. Castiel couldn’t see what was hidden within them, but his back straightened with alarm nonetheless. He never liked the idea of not having control over his own mind.

Dean slid down the spar, leaving Castiel up to watch their destination. On the deck, everyone was moving. It reminded Castiel of his first days on the ship, watching everything shifting around him and staying still in the center; only instead of being a prisoner, he felt now like a bird. He watched the islands approach slowly, their sharp edges becoming clearer and more defined with every passing minute.

It took hours.

The first signs of danger came at dawn. When they reached the first of the rocks, maneuvering became a real challenge. Castiel didn’t understand how Jo, at the wheel, was managing it. When the first, faint notes of a song were heard, Dean’s crew was ready – and just as bewildering as usual. The most of them were under the deck, covering their ears with their fists. Jo, her hands on the wheel, had Charlie covering her ears with a chain of crewmates behind her, each of them covering the ears of the person before them. The chain ended with Crowley, who seemed to be unexplainably immune to the sirens’ song. Castiel was covering his own ears with his fists, and beside him, the reason why all of them didn’t lose their minds to the unseen creatures within the rocks: a kid called Kevin, surely no older than eighteen, was sitting on a stool with a cello bigger than him and playing so loudly that Castiel felt he could unclench his fists and listen intently and still not fall under the influence of the creatures.

He scanned the deck for Dean’s idle figure, his heart starting up a rapid rhythm in his chest when he found him sitting on the ship’s prow with his legs dangling in the air, his arms stretched behind him and supporting his weight.

His ears uncovered.

Castiel walked towards him, his thoughts racing in an attempt to form a plan to tackle Dean and prevent him from jumping into the water, but then Dean’s head tilted sideways, and Castiel was close enough to see a cotton ball stuck in Dean’s ear.

Earbuds.

A wave of irritation washed over Castiel. _Asshole kept them to himself._

Dean saw him then, and waved his hand for Castiel to come closer. He yelled something that Castiel couldn’t hear, raising his eyebrows. Castiel nodded. Dean laughed and took a piece of paper out of his pocket.

 _You didn’t hear anything of what I said,_ he wrote down with a pencil. Castiel shook his head, and Dean laughed again. He scribbled another sentence on the paper.

_So just how close are we supposed to get to the mind-suckers? Or are you soulless like Crowley and this is your plan of how to kill us? Because let me warn you, those earbuds are really stuck in there._

Castiel read the page, then stared at Dean.

“Oh,” he saw Dean’s lips utter when he realized Castiel didn’t have his hands to write with.

_Well, we need the next place’s coordinates, right? So we should probably take our current coordinates._

Castiel shook his head.

_Then what?_

He shrugged.

Dean sighed. He thought for a moment, and wrote something down unwillingly. When he handed Castiel the paper, his expression was set into a grimace.

_Aight. You’re gonna write down everything I need to know now, because I am NOT doing this twice. I’mma… I’mma cover your ears so you’ll have your hands free._

With the last words, Castiel could almost feel the resentment in Dean’s handwriting. _And for the record, next destination we’re getting everything prepared BEFORE we get there._

Castiel nodded. In a quick motion, the hands on his ears swapped. For a fraction of a second, over the heavy notes of the cello, he thought he heard a soft tune. And then he felt Dean’s hands on his ears, Dean’s lips making out his name in fear of whatever expression passed on his face, and he was alright.  

He wrote quickly, trying to ignore the warm hands pressed against both sides of his head, protecting him from madness like some sort of twisted embrace.

_Draw the skyline to the north. You’ll need it to get the coordinates for the next destination._

They swapped hands. Dean read and nodded. He went and climbed the spar, doing as Castiel said. Then he slid down and spoke to Jo, who turned the wheel and started navigating out of the maze of rocks at his words.

Soon enough, they were out of harm’s way and on their way east.

Explaining to Dean how the unconventional map worked was almost fun. Again, the solution had Dean wide-eyed with curiosity, and again, the harsh line of Castiel’s lips softened against his will.

“Put the skyline sketch over the map,” he said when they were back in Dean’s room. When Dean did as he said, lining the page above the list of numbers, his eyes lit up with realization and he bent above the table.

The peaks of the horizon aligned with the digits – specifically, six of the circled ones.

“Where does this lead?” He asked. Castiel shrugged.

“I never got that far.”

Dean looked up at him. “What?”

He watched Dean’s hands, clenched against the edge of the table beside the pages that swayed with the movements of the sea deep beneath them.

“These coordinates… It would be crazy to follow where they lead. When I worked out what the next destination was, I figured Edlund was either a madman or a sadist whose apparent entertainment was to watch his enemies perish in pain.” He wasn’t lying. With the smell of salt and wood in his nostrils, the memory of his last time searching for the treasure was strong; spending days on the burning-hot deck of his ship, trying to make sense of the numbers, and eventually solving the riddle and finding the coordinates for the next destination. When he’d realized where they lead, his heart had filled with despair. It was a suicide mission.

“I deemed it foolish and suicidal to persist on to the next destination, so I gave up and went back home.”

Dean stared at him with eyes the size of grapefruits. It was evident on his face that he was capable of many things, but giving up was not one.

“It was June,” Castiel justified with a tinge of defensiveness. “Summer gets hot.”

“I know how hot it gets,” Dean said dryly. “We’re not turning round. Not slowing down, either. You’ll have to improvise from now on.”

Castiel sighed.

His time was running out.

Dean let go of the table and lay a hand on a knife sheathed in his belt.

“So, what’s our next stop?”

 

Life on Dean’s ship was setting into a comfortable routine: wake up in the room he shared with Charlie, Jo and a sack of potatoes – the men’s quarters didn’t have any space left – eat a breakfast of dry bread, root vegetables and stale water, and then follow Dean around while answering his inquiries for the rest of the day. Dean’s people took to him, slow but steady, and soon he gained whatever version of respect among the crew that pirates had. Dean’s tall, bear-like brother often took his side in arguments against Dean, seeming to enjoy seeing his older brother, as he called it, ‘outsmarted for once by someone other than myself’; Charlie made jokes about Dean and him which he never seemed to comprehend but always elicited uncomfortable reactions from Dean, making him stare down at his shoes or glare at her.

And they advanced towards their destination in an awfully quick pace.

Castiel would never admit it to anyone but the sack of potatoes by his ragged matrass, but he felt that he was almost starting to enjoy himself.

Dean’s questions became less personal and more practical, which made whatever emotion was raging in Castiel’s chest ease in relief for the time being. He told Dean about the man to whom the treasure belonged, an old Sir I.P. Freely, who had become too long in the tooth to stop Carver Edlund from taking it when he tried. Dean didn’t seem to care much about the injustice in that.  “Pirate life,” he said with a shrug.

For no apparent reason, Dean seemed to find Castiel’s stories only more and more fascinating. And when he found a story particularly interesting, he would take a break from whatever they were doing to sit down and watch Castiel speak. On better days, a couple of enthralled crewmates would join in to listen. On others, Dean would sit closely and stare at him for as long as he spoke. Castiel didn’t like the fact that he found it harder to form a thought the closer Dean sat, nor did he appreciate the green, distracting flare in his eyes. He didn’t like it, but he felt Dean and himself growing on each other like a custom-tailored glove.

And then Dean became distant, all at once.

 

He paced back and forth in front of his table, his small audience watching him like cats watching a bouncing ball.

“All I said was, we’re running out of supplies,” Charlie said carefully, eyeing him as if he might accelerate his pace into the speed of light if she said it again.

“I know,” said Dean, slowing his pace and resting his palms smoothly on the table. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. We need to dock and renew our supplies.”

They stared at him, uncomprehending. He’s never made a fuss about a restocking before.

“…I think I’m gonna let Cas go.”

They stared at him even harder.

 _“What?”_ Charlie let out. Sam’s eyebrows pulled together.

“I thought he was your friend.”

 _“Friend?”_ Charlie shrilled. “Did you _see_ the way they look at each other?”

Sam looked down at her face, one whole foot lower than his.

“…No?”

Charlie groaned. “He’s been thinking with his – I don’t wanna say what – for the past couple of months.” She looked at Dean. “What the hell changed?”

Dean felt a sting in his chest, partly for her crude accusation, and partly because of the hurt in her voice. He hadn’t realized just how fondly she felt about that little weird dude.

He didn’t feel that sting about the decision to leave Cas.

No, that felt more like a huge octopus grabbing him in the leg and slamming his body against the surface repeatedly like a kid flinging a toy around in a tantrum.

And he knew just how it felt to be in that tight octopus grip.

Moist. Very moist. And painful.

“Nothing changed,” he said to Charlie. “That’s exactly the point. The guy’s growing on me too much. People’re starting to like him. I can’t keep him prisoner here and all the while develop…” He wrinkled his nose. “Real feelings.”

Certainly not feelings that that grown baby angel would never, ever reciprocate.

“It’s not… It’s not like that,” Charlie tried, but her despaired voice indicated that she comprehended how exactly like that it was. Cas was taken captive on this ship, and he would never stay if the opportunity to leave arose. All he ever spoke about was free will, his new life and that kind of nonsense.

“I think I know enough about the map to be able to get us to the treasure,” Dean said flatly. “Even if not, it won’t take us too long to figure it out.”

Sam patted on Charlie’s back reassuringly. “How do you wanna do it?” He asked.

“We’ll dock the ship in the nearest beach city, go on a supply run, the usual deal. In and out. I’ll, uh… I’ll take care of the rest.”

Sam nodded. Charlie sighed. Dean turned to leave the room.

“Hey, Dean?”

He turned to look at his brother.

“Leaving your feelings on land and sailing as fast as you can in the other direction… That’s not always a good idea.”

Dean took an even breath.

“I’m not about to listen to an overgrown moose,” he said quickly through clenched teeth, and left the room.

 

“So we’re stopping for three hours exactly,” Castiel repeated in a calculated voice, following Dean around the deck as he moved crates and tugged at ropes. “And we’re leaving half our crew behind because… Some old singer needs help with his work?”

“It’s his name, Cas. He doesn’t actually sing,” Dean grunted, moving a particularly heavy crate around. He glanced to see if Castiel was looking at his –quite impressive, he personally believed – muscle work, but the other man seemed to be too busy with the mysteries of supply hauls to notice the truly important things. 

“…And we’re not to be noticed, because you’re wanted in this town.”

“Yeah, and about thirty nine more of ‘em.”

“Why didn’t we stop in a different town, then?”

“Because it was invaded by zombies!” Dean called. Castiel’s lips pulled down, taken aback by Dean’s outburst.

“Look, Cas, I…” He sighed. He suspected this was the first time Castiel has seen him in a bad mood, and it would be the last. “I need you to do me a favor.”

Sadness suddenly flooded his chest. He’s grown so fond of that man that every time Castiel’s eyes rested on him felt like the prick of a needle.

“I need you to go and grab me some stuff from the market. Here. I made a list.”

“Okay,” Castiel said, viewing the note Dean had given him. He looked at Dean, squinting. “Are you alright?”

Dean faltered, unsure what to say. He coughed unconvincingly. “I’m sick.”

Castiel seemed to be persuaded.

“Feel better,” he said. He shoved Dean’s list into his pocket, hesitated, patted Dean’s shoulder cautiously as though he were trying to imitate Dean’s manner of doing it, and finally hopped off the deck in a swift motion and strode down the pier into the city.

Dean’ feelings were a mixture of relief and a recreation of the octopus slinging him around.

He turned around and got to work.

His feet ached to be on real, stable ground, running errands like half of his crew was doing at the moment – the other half had packed their bags and headed to the nearest inn.

Instead, he was stuck on the wobbling ship with Sam and Charlie, preparing for departure.

A couple of hours later they were sitting in a line on the prow, feet dangling above the quiet waters, watching the lasts of their remaining crew climb back onto the ship. For a few silent moments, Dean closed his eyes and let himself enjoy the breeze on his face and the sound of crusty sailors cussing each other on the nearest boat.

“Time t’go,” he said then and stood up, walking the narrow plank back to the deck. His friends followed behind him.

“Everyone here?” He asked, looking around. A few faces nodded. He shot one last look towards the town, as if searching for another familiar face – but there was none.

“A’ight,” he mumbled. “Charlie – don’t get yourself killed with Bobby, eh? And keep everyone safe, I sent my best people with you. Sammy, we’re off.”

He headed for the wheel, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“Dean,” Sam said, looking towards the town behind them.

“Is that…” Charlie trailed off, staring in the same direction. Dean felt his feet pull him in half a circle to face what they saw.

"He came back," Charlie finished incredulously. "Is that… Whiskey?"

On Dean’s other side, Sam squinted. “Not just whiskey,” he noted. "Practically the most expensive brand."

"…I didn't give him any money."

They both turned to stare at Dean then, but he didn’t look at them. Castiel was walking down the pier, his motions reserved. When he saw Dean, his eyes lit up. Dean’s jaw dropped.

"I think he's trying to woo you," Charlie said confidently.  

Dean let out an unnecessarily loud huff. "What’re y’talking about," he mumbled, not taking his eyes off of Cas, who was climbing onto the deck now.

“What’s going on?” He asked, coming to stand before the three of them. “I brought what you asked,” he said to Dean.

The three of them stared at him.

“I…” Dean tried, but failed.

“You’re here!” Charlie said cheerily.

“Of course,” he frowned. “Wh- did you think I wouldn’t find my way back? Come on, you guys. I’ve spent years roaming big city streets while you were on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Give me some credit.”

They just stared at him.

He squinted at them. “Don’t we need to go?”

Dean cleared his throat. “Right. Go. Yeah. We go to need. We… yes.”

And so, Charlie left, and Castiel stayed.

 

Dean never explained to him why he’d acted so weird the day they docked to resupply. During the next few days, he seemed to do everything in his power to make Castiel uncomfortable: he’d eye him quizzically for hours at a time, and then, at something Castiel sometimes didn’t even realize he’d said, Dean’s expression would melt down and turn into a mixture of happiness and pain.

“I noticed something,” Castiel said once, a couple of weeks past Dean’s weird behavior. “That day, when we stopped at the city.”

“Yes?” Dean asked, raising his head. His arms were elbow-deep inside a barrel full of sea water, trying to catch fish.

“When I was walking back to the ship, I saw an engraving on the front,” he said, his hands deep in a barrel of his own. He caught one of the fish inside it, and pulled it out. “’The Impala’. I was wondering what it meant.”

Dean smiled, his chest puffing as it did when he was proud. He caught a fish of his own and pulled it out, throwing it over to two guys called Ed and Harry, who seemed like they were about to throw up as they were beheading, skinning and gutting the fish.

“My baby. That’s her name.”

“But… why?”

“Cause she’s nimble and marvelous, like the animal,” he boasted with a wide grin.

Castiel never asked him anything again.

They were progressing too quickly. In an alternate universe, Castiel may have been able to enjoy his days in the sun with Dean, but in the real world he didn’t have that privilege. His mind was constantly overtaken by worry, and the closer they came to their next destination, the worse it got. He knew that he was becoming too comfortable here, alone with Dean in the middle of the ocean, and he knew that the moment they got to the treasure he would have to find the quickest way to leave.

He didn’t want to leave.

And then one night, things got one hundred times better and one hundred times worse at the same time.

After crossing half the ocean east, they could finally see their next stop: a distant island, resembling the Sirens’ one, maybe, but much larger, much higher and surrounded by sandy shores. To Sam’s dismay, Dean took out a few bottles of whiskey to celebrate. A couple of hours later most of Dean’s crew was knocked out in their beds, and Sam was manning the wheel. Castiel found himself up on the highest branch of the mast side by side with a drunk Dean, and he didn’t quite know what to do about it.

“Tell me something,” he asked, mostly to feel Dean’s eyes on his face. “Before I got here, did you do all these things alone? Go around the ship and fix things and pull ropes with no one following you around and being… ‘so broody that I might knock you down with my powers of being dark and mysterious’?”

“Hey,” Dean protested. “I said, knock the whole ship down. Not just me.”

Castiel felt like he should roll his eyes. He smiled instead. Dean was quiet for a moment.

“Yes,” he said finally. “It wasn’t half as fun, though.”

Castiel didn’t understand why Dean considered him fun in any way. He’d never been considered fun before.

“You’re calling me fun,” he said. Dean flashed his heart-stopping grin. Castiel sighed. “You’re so full of shit.”

“Hey,” Dean started, waving a finger in the air in protest, but the sharp movement made him lose balance and he almost slipped off into the open air. Castiel caught his shirt in a quick movement and pulled him back up smoothly. They were close now, close enough for Castiel to feel Dean’s breath on his skin, and smell the whiskey in it.

“Your eyes are so blue,” Dean mumbled. Castiel snorted.

“Exactly how drunk are you?”

Dean shrugged. “Not as drunk as I’m pretending to be.” He was stable in his seat now, with no need for additional support, but Castiel’s fingers were still resting against his chest.

He didn’t mean it to happen. He wasn’t quite sure if Dean did. The wind was ruffling their hairs. He could feel the warmth of Dean’s skin beneath his fingers. Dean leaned over and his hand touched Castiel’s knee – to support his own weight, surely, to not fall down again. His lips were close, so close, and moving – murmuring about how happy he’s been in the past few something – Castiel didn’t pay attention, couldn’t hear anything beyond the beating of his pulse behind his ears. Dean’s movements were sharp, intended, not slippery with the influence of the entire bottle of alcohol he’d finished. His eyes closed, and Castiel could feel his own shoulders leaning forward – and then he stopped.

“You never really intended to cut off my finger, did you?”

Dean opened his eyes, only to pull his brows low over them. “What?”

“When you found the treasure map – you threatened to cut off my finger. I can’t get romantically involved with someone who would try to dismember me. You must understand.”

“What? Cas, no, I would never cut your fucking finger off. God, you’re such a fuckin’ party pooper, you know that?”

Castiel took that as a no. Dean didn’t seem to recover as quickly, though. They spent the rest of the night looking in different directions over the quiet water. Until finally, he felt Dean’s hand on his.

 

“Dean. Open up. Dean!”

Castiel raised a hand, heavy with sleep, to yank the blanket off his face, and forced his eyes open.

He wasn’t in his room.

It was dark, and he was warm. Warmer than he should be, as he could see the outlines of the blanket as it fell onto the floor from an edge of the bed.

“Dean!”

Something bothered his ears. Thumping. Knocks on the door. He looked down.

Dean was splayed over him like a tastefully placed sheet in a Renaissance painting.

“Ugh,” he let out. Dean groaned against his chest.

The pieces were falling into place slowly: he was in Dean’s bed, their clothes scattered on the floor, and the events of the previous night were beginning to come back to him.

The knocking was incessant. Dean moved on top of him, opening his eyes.

“Your chest is so firm,” he sighed sleepily. “Almost as much as mine.”

“Someone’s at the door,” Castiel muttered urgently. Dean lifted his head, and dropped it again on Castiel’s chest.

“A’ight, a’ight. I’m up.”

He stood up clumsily, tripping over the blanket. Staggering into his underpants, he looked back at Castiel.

“Are we… telling people?”

A memory flashed behind Castiel’s eyelids; Dean holding his hand and looking the other direction. Dean kissing him, uncertainly, not at all in the way that he expected.

He closed his eyes and rubbed them with the palm of his hand, making an effort to shake the pictures away.

He rationalized.

It would probably be easiest for Dean if no one knew, if he could just put Castiel behind and forget any of this ever happened, right? …Right?

He had no idea. He knew nothing about relationships.  

God, he shouldn’t have entered this mess in the first place.

“No,” he said, his voice muffled by his hand. “Better not.”

Dean’s voice was seemingly unaffected when he spoke.

“There’s a back door in the bathrooms. It leads to the left hand storage units.”

“Say no more,” Castiel interrupted. He reached for his shoes and clothes in a quick motion and disappeared into Dean’s washroom. Behind him, he could hear the front door to Dean’s room creak.

 

“What the hell?” Jo was standing at the threshold, her hand clenched into a fist mid-motion by the open door. Behind her stood Sam, his arms crossed against his chest.  “You’ve taken, like, four minutes to open the door.”

“I was sleeping.” Dean’s voice was gruff and defensive. He kept the door half-opened, standing under the lintel to block his visitors’ view into the room. He hoped Cas has found his way out by now, but there was no harm in being extra careful.

“Dean, it’s ten in the morning,” Sam said, more collected than his companion. “Get dressed. We’re here.”

“Here?” Dean asked, rubbing the heel of his palm into his eye. His mind was elsewhere, resting between Cas’ hands and the bed. He shook his head.

“The mountains,” Sam explained, only barely masking the annoyance in his voice. “That bottle of whiskey doesn’t look too good on you, you know.”

“A’ight,” Dean grumbled. “Lemme get dressed.” He started closing the door.

“Wait,” Jo stopped him. “I need to borrow a compass. Lucifer broke the one we keep upstairs, again.”

Dean hesitated. His mind raced trying to find an excuse to shut the door, but by the time he could stammer something out Jo had already ducked under his arm and walked into the room – from where there was a clear view into the washroom.  

Dean looked up at his brother. A second passed. There was silence – not any surprised scream. Dean exhaled in relief and turned around, only to see Jo standing in the center of the room, staring at the floor.

To her feet, a white cotton shirt.

 “Is there a chick in here?” Jo asked.

Sam took a step in, frowning at the shirt. “Dear God,” he muttered. They looked at Dean, waiting for an answer.

“Uh…” Dean mumbled. “You just missed her,” he shrugged. That was one way to solve the problem, he supposed.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us!” Jo hissed at him.

“Who is it?” Sam wondered.

Dean’s mind seemed to erase every name he’s heard in his life except for Cas’.  Cas, Cas, Cas, with every beat of his heart. It was quite irritating, honestly.

There was a long moment of silence.

“I think you guys should g-“

“It can’t be Anna,” Jo barged in. “That didn’t end well last time.”

“Charlie took everyone with her except Abbadon and Rowena,” Sam added.

“God, please tell me you didn’t do it with Rowena.”

“Jesus, Jo, no.” Dean rubbed his eyes again. The overwhelming clutter in his mind clashed with the one in his room; he couldn’t think. 

“Fine,” Jo exclaimed. “Don’t tell me. See if I care. You could at least have the decency to be a gentleman and tell us to leave.”

“By all means, leave,” Dean said dryly.

Sam passed by Dean quietly. “There’s no chick.”

“What?” Jo and Dean blurted out at the same time.

“It’s a man’s shirt,” Sam pointed at the shirt, as if his words could be mistakenly associated with another shirt. Dean felt the blood drain from his face. “Jesus, Dean, is this the revenge thing again? I told you, stealing Crowley’s things isn’t gonna make him stop turning your hostages into hamsters-“

He was about to embark on the long, usual speech, Dean knew, but a voice from the back of the room stopped him.

“Sorry, I forgot my…”

His voice faded as soon as he realized Dean was not alone in his room. He stood at the door with a bare chest, his mouth frozen half-open. Sam and Jo turned to look at him.

“…Shirt,” he finished faintly, his eyes skipping across the faces in the room and finally landing on his shirt. Sam and Jo stared at it, their eyes almost jumping out of their sockets.

Castiel moved hesitantly to grab his shirt from the floor and put it on in a quick, smooth motion.

“So far for not telling people,” he sighed. “If you three ever unfreeze, there’s a huge volcano we ought to spend as least time below as possible.” He looked over at Dean. “And since you’d asked me to specify on what we’ll need this time – bring a piece of paper, and a compass.”

He turned to leave, and a piece of paper on Dean’s desk called his attention. “What’s that?”

It was a list, but not one specifying on food supplies or weapons or gold – what caught Castiel’s eye was the odd combination of words it presented.

“Cas, wait-“

“ _Soldier Boy, Pumpkin, Honey Bear… My Handsomest Treasure Yet?_ What is this?” He looked up and found Dean’s jaw slack, his one hand reaching halfway in a futile attempt to stop him. And beside him, a teary eyed Sam and Jo, grabbing their stomachs with laughter.

“You made a _list_?” Sam cried. “Wait till Charlie hears about this!”

 Castiel looked at them, and looked at the paper again, and his face turned a shade of red only slightly less embarrassingly deep than Dean’s. And then he turned around, glanced Dean up and down briefly, and vanished as abruptly as he’d appeared.

 

At the edge of the world, Castiel looked into Dean’s eyes.

“Have you ever flown?” He asked, feeling a wave of excitement go through his chest at his own words. Dean glanced down into the dark pit before them and gulped. At the sight of his pale face, the anticipation in Castiel’s voice vanished.

“There’s no reason to worry. It’s safe – there’s a dozen of stories to account for that.”

“I know,” Dean breathed. He didn’t look very convinced. “A dozen stories of people who made it,” he muttered at the pit, “and another dozen of those who didn’t.”

The pit was pitch black, with the occasional burst of orange flares. The sight of it was mesmerizing, only a small bit more captivating than their surroundings – the whole three hundred and sixty degrees of view of the highest mountain in the west, a cold and vicious landscape of gray rock and restless waters in shades from white to deep blue.

Castiel lifted an eyebrow. “Do you want to go back?”

“No,” Dean grumbled. “It’s just that I have a…”

“Fear,” Castiel suggested.

“Yes. Of…”

They spoke simultaneously.

“Active volcanos.”

“Heights.”

“Oh,” Castiel frowned. “Where’s the sense in that? You go up with me on the mast almost every day.”

Dean replied dryly, but anxiety simmered beneath his indifferent façade. “Checking out the view from the second floor ain’t quite the same as free-falling from the roof, Cas. And besides,” he added in a mutter, “it’s easier when I have control over the situation."

“How could you take control over a burning pit of lava?” Castiel asked. He didn’t want to make this harder for Dean, but part of him hoped that Dean might just turn round and call it quits.

Dean looked up at him, smiling, and once again said something that was against all reason.

“I’ll jump a moment earlier.” And then, with a smooth motion, he lifted his foot and stepped into the open air and the mountain swallowed him as gravity pulled the rest of him into darkness. Castiel glanced inside – tried to spot a flailing limb, listened for a scream – but there was none. And then he felt the ground sway, his feet unstable on his ledge of rock, and a low rumble came from the mountain. The pit burst with color and heat – flares, he realized, and little chunks of lava and ashes that flew around him – and an enormous, magnificent creature erupted from the mountain with Dean on its back, looking the most terrified, exhilarated and amazed Castiel has ever seen him.

He watched the dragon soar up, a brilliant flash of turquoise and blue and gray, Dean settled securely between its shoulder blades and still gripping its scales for dear life. Looking upwards, captivated by the beautiful creature and Dean on its back, so terrified and fearless at the same time, Castiel dropped into the volcano himself. Not a few seconds passed before he crashed onto black rock, and struggled to position himself safely on its back when it came to life and opened its wings. Moments later he was up in the air with Dean, riding a dragon’s back that was darker than midnight skies with much more comfort and ease than Dean was on his ocean-like dragon.

He watched his fierce pirate company, looking ten years younger as he stared down at the sea.

“Can you believe this?” He heard Dean’s voice, muted by the wind. “We’re flying! Cas, we’re flying, and I’m not dead!” He tried to turn and look at Castiel then. His body tilted sideways, losing balance.

“Can you believe it?” He repeated, his voice wilder now and deeply shaken, his expression forcing Castiel to purse his lips in order to suppress a smile. He was so alive, so fiercely alive, that it made Castiel feel like he was all in black and white and gray in comparison. Dean looked at him again, this time more successful in maintaining his balance, and got something from his pocket – a piece of paper, fluttering in the wind.

“What am I searching for?” He yelled over to Castiel. “The skyline, again?”

Castiel shook his head. “Look down,” he shouted back. Dean seemed to be at war with himself at the instruction, but he managed to look past his dragon’s head and down at the mountains.

“You need to be facing north. The mountain peaks and the small isles – they create a spiral of a sort.”

Dean nodded and looked at his compass, waiting until his dragon made a sharp turn left. Then he lay out the page on his dragon’s deep blue neck and scribbled on it. Castiel could see the tension in his jaw – he was gritting his teeth. The wind ruffling his hair violently in every direction, his eyes wide and the line of his shoulders strong, his figure seemed wild and impressive. Restless and still forceful, like the sea itself. Castiel’s chest filled with a foolish longing to stay in his moment and watch Dean for the rest of his lonely life.

Dean was finished too soon, looking over at him, smiling at whatever expression was on his face. He opened his mouth as if to say something he’s completely forgotten about as soon as he’d thought it, and for a moment it almost seemed like he felt what Castiel was feeling, never wanting to move on, never wanting to look away.

But nothing good lasts forever.

 

“So, next stop.”

Castiel sat down, across the table from where Dean was standing.

“Do you ever get land sickness?” He wondered. Dean’s eyebrows furrowed at his question, but he otherwise ignored it.

“I checked our maps, twice. The coordinates don’t lead anywhere, Cas, and they’re half across the globe to the east. It’s a spot in the middle of the sea.”

Beside them, Sam gripped his head with his giant bear hand. “So let me get this right – you got him to jump into a volcano.”

Castiel nodded, which only seemed to make Sam more confused.

“This is hardly important right now,” Dean frowned at them, stabbing a finger at Castiel’s number-map. His hand was still shaking. “We’re getting closer to the treasure.”

“And then… fly,” Sam went on, huffing in amazement. “The guy with the aviophobia. On the back of a wild dragon.”

Castiel’s expression shifted into what could only be interpreted as a poorly masked smirk.

“We’ve found three coordinates so far.” Dean looked up. “How many are left?” Castiel shrugged.

“Impressive,” Sam muttered under his breath. Dean let out a soft sigh, as though pulling his dagger out every time someone upset him was a tiring – if rational – reaction, and threw his blade at Sam in a swift motion. Sam dodged it easily, and it skewered a noisy fly to the wall.

“Ha. You’re getting rusty,” Sam teased. Dean slumped into a chair. His hands were still quivering, if almost unnoticeably now.

Castiel sent out a hand and hesitantly took Dean’s, squeezing it. He suspected Dean’s thorough examination of the ceiling lamp was an attempt not to give into a smile. His shaking soothed. He squeezed back.

“Into the middle of nowhere it is, then,” he sighed, glancing at Castiel, half smiling. It seemed that ever since that night on the mast, Dean couldn’t look at him without smiling. Castiel didn’t quite know what to do about it. He’s never had someone look at him that way before.

He looked into Dean’s eyes, emerald green, still exhilarated from their trip. And he recalled something.

“These coordinates…” He said, “we’re going to need a dagger and a vial.”

“A vial?” Dean wrinkled his nose. “Don’t wanna be a party pooper, Cas, but the Satanic Ritual ship has sailed. You just missed it.”

“I don’t understand that reference,” Castiel furrowed his eyebrows, but he moved on; if he stopped to think every time Dean made a comment that baffled him, he’d never catch up. “There are no satanic rituals. We’re going to Scotland; we need a sample of blood from the Loch Ness Monster.”

 

All the way east and north to Scotland, only to dive into freezing water and stab a sea monster in the toe, and go back the way they’d come. The crew was getting impatient, but Dean’s excitement was contagious. It was admirable, in a way, the sight of him standing in front of his crowd and instilling his buzz in them. Sitting on a crate, affixing his body language and the keen look in his eyes into his arguments; Sam standing nearby, his hands crossed, but still engrossed in the taste of adventure.

From the Loch Ness Monster to a witch in a barren canyon who sold potions, to the streets of an ancient city, where they lost themselves in labyrinths of stone for days. And all the while, Castiel standing on the outside with one foot in and one out, watching the quests become more violent and magical and occult and Dean passing them one by one without batting an eyelid.

They found the last coordinates at the center of a meteor crater, drawing the constellations in the sky. The shapes that matched the numbered map led them to a big island made of caves, with a thick layer of vegetation growing atop its gray stone.

“You’re going to want the rest of the crew to join,” Castiel said when they arrived. “The stories tell that no one who’s tried to retrieve the treasure got out of these caves alive.”

“Thanks for the reassurance,” Dean muttered. He looked up at the rocky wall that rose before them and collapsed into narrow tunnels here and there, like a multiple-nostriled monster. “At least that means we know the treasure is still there.”

Dean called the crew around. He left Jo on the Impala – “You stay behind and take care of my baby,” he said, smirking, “and I mean the ship, Cas, not you-“ to which a few pairs of eyebrows rose, and he dropped his smile and cleared his throat. “The rest are coming with.”

On the island, they gathered on a ledge of rock, open sky and sea to one side and the stone mountain with openings to four or five tunnels on the other.

“We’ll part into teams,” Dean said, standing with a hand on his sword, his clothes tattered, his back to the sea. “Sam – you go ‘round the island, see what’s on the other side. We’ll meet back at the ship. Everyone else – team up and choose a tunnel. C’mon, just like third grade. Cas, what are we dealing with?”

“Monsters. Strange ones; nothing like you’ve seen before.”

“Nothing I’ve seen before, eh?” Dean nodded his head at his brother, and Sam walked back to the ship.

From a corner of the loose circle, Crowley spoke wryly. “And how would you know so much about what’s in these caves?”

A few pairs of eyes rose to look for Castiel’s reaction. He glanced at Dean, searching for support. Dean looked up from the map, distracted, and shrugged.

“You never told me how you got this.” He shook the paper in his hand. His eyes held no accusation, only absent minded curiosity.

The rest of the crew didn’t react as forgivingly to Castiel’s hindering. Their eyes narrowed, heads tilting with suspicion. 

“I had letters,” he said reluctantly, working to keep his voice calm and untroubled. “From Edlund’s diary. The garrison found them, and tried to decipher the map. They… they gave up trying after they couldn’t figure out what the numbers meant.” He saw Cowley’s eyes narrow, his mouth opening again, and he spoke quickly.

“I burned the letters after I read them. I was sure I knew how to get to the treasure; I didn’t imagine I’d fail and might need them again.”

That seemed to be enough. Crowley stepped back, pacified, and said something to Kevin, who seemed utterly uncomfortable with the proximity of his equally short companion and whatever he was speaking about.

Alas, Dean was still troubled, frowning at him. “You didn’t tell me you had any letters,” he grumbled. 

“Well, and you didn’t tell me you keep a knife under your pillow,” Castiel countered, and Dean was distracted all at once, fighting off the urge to roll his eyes. “It stabbed me this mo-“ Castiel cut off sharply. “Sam is arriving.”

Saved by the Sam.

He was back with a few bags full of daggers, pistols and smaller bags that made soft hissing sounds when they shifted. The crew paired up, each team arming itself with Sam’s supplies before he left to scour the surface of the island. Dean gave his people some final instructions, and they were on their way. He took with Castiel a crammy-looking tunnel – partly because no one else would choose to pair up with the dubious stranger, Castiel felt, but he didn’t mind. He rathered being stuck with Dean in a dark and narrow passage than with anyone else. He wished suddenly for the small, cheerful Charlie, and for her relentless chatter to fill in the quiet.

The darkness swallowed them whole, leaving little space for the soft light of their torch. Dean led them through the chilly tunnel, deep into the heart of the island.

“So,” he said after a few minutes, his tone casual. “There’s something I was wondering about.”

“When will the monsters attack?” Castiel suggested flatly. He didn’t like the forced nonchalance of Dean’s tone, and he didn’t feel like tiptoeing around questions he didn’t want to answer.

“No,” Dean mused. “Well, that too. Isn’t it suspiciously quiet in here? Shouldn’t we hear growls, or at least, like, an evil laughter?”

Castiel concentrated, listening for any sort of noise. “I don’t hear any evil laughter.”

“No,” Dean grunted. “Cas, it was…” He sighed. “T’was a joke.”

Castiel didn’t answer. He listened to Dean’s laugh and to the sound of his steps after a few moments, as the awkward silence settled in.

“What were you wondering about?” He asked eventually. Dean took a moment to answer.

“Why did you come back?” He asked. His voice still held a residue of amusement in it.

“What do you mean?” Castiel asked, his forehead creasing.

“That day… months ago, back in the summer, at the dock where we stopped for supplies. I let you leave. Why did you come back?”

“I… wasn’t supposed to?”

Dean burst into laughter, only barely restrained enough to not spread across the tunnel. He stopped walking and Castiel bumped into him, his hand rising to Dean’s shoulder to regain balance.

“No,” Dean answered. “No, you weren’t.”  He resumed walking, his smile seeming to shift its nature under the moving light of the torch. “I was letting you go, Cas. I was… beginning to see the person in you, and I wasn’t going to be responsible for ruining that person.”

“You sent me shopping,” Castiel argued, his confusion increasing.

“I didn’t give you any money,” Dean countered. He stopped at a forked junction and let Castiel choose a path before they continued. “I didn’t imagine you’d come back – none of us did,” he explained.

“…Oh.”

“So… why did you?”

Castiel took a moment to process the information. “I… found your people fascinating,” he said slowly. In his mind, he recalled the expressions of shock and surprise on Dean’s, Sam’s and Charlie’s faces when he came back from the city. God, what a class A idiot he was. “You’re the strangest bunch I’ve seen. And you…” Would he have gone had he known he could just leave? Take off and put everything behind him, like he’d meant to in the very first place, instead of staying on Dean’s ship and digging himself a hole that got deeper every day just to feel the wind on his face, to hear Dean’s voice beside him? “You always managed to take me by surprise.”

Purposefully or not, Dean tilted his head in an angle that Castiel’s eyes didn’t catch from where he was walking, halfway behind Dean between the narrow walls of their cave. Neither of them spoke for a while.

At last, they started hearing voices; soft mumbles, whisperings that gave way to a certain anxiety that replaced Castiel’s initial relief of the tense silence between himself and Dean being broken. The voices called out, not quite menacing but rather confused, sending a shiver down Castiel’s spine as they seemed to come from just behind his ear – but no one was there.

Dean glanced back at him, smirking. “Need me to hold your hand?” He asked, his voice dipping in smug sarcasm. Castiel huffed at him with irritation.

In spite of his taunting, Dean sent a hand for his fingers, but Castiel shook him off.

“I’m fine,” he grumbled. And then the first attack began: a pale figure appeared out of the nothingness; a tall man, sending his white fingers towards Castiel’s throat. The boney fingers were ice cold when they gripped him, and way too palpable for the flickering, immaterial man. Way too strong for his lanky structure, too, as he locked them around Castiel’s throat and lifted him into the air without the slightest effort. Castiel grabbed the man’s arm, kicked and punched, but for no avail. The tip of his head hit the ceiling of the cave. Without realizing it he’d stopped breathing and his throat ached so bad he couldn’t make a sound – and then there was a _whoosh,_ and the man disappeared. Castiel fell to the ground to Dean’s feet, who was holding a crowbar in both hands, as though he had just hauled it at something.

“Seriously, Cas,” he panted, dropping to his knees to touch Castiel’s shoulder. “Next time someone’s offering you a hand, just take the fuckin’ hand.”

“I’m fine,” Castiel muttered again. His throat throbbed when he so much as breathed, but to Hell if that was going to stop him from arguing with Dean.

“Yeah, clearly,” Dean shot back. “Are you gonna say that to the grim reaper too, and expect him to leave you alone and go on his merry way?” He reached for Castiel’s throat, his fingers fluttering above the collarbone to check the damage, but didn’t try to stop Castiel when he rose back to his feet. They resumed walking. 

“What was that?” Castiel wondered, rubbing his neck. Whatever it was, it had great finger muscles.

He watched the back of Dean’s neck as they walked, feeling that his own back was exposed, and fighting the urge to look around again and again.

“Ghost,” Dean answered shortly, holding the torch a little further away from his body. He was stepping right before Castiel now, sweeping the tunnel with his eyes as it sloped downwards. Small gravel moved and squeaked under their boots as they followed the descending path. “You kill it by salting and burning the bones. Since we aren’t likely to run into any bones in this narrow butthole – you make it go away with salt, or with iron. Here.” He stopped walking to dig into his pocket and throw Castiel a bag of salt. Then he got a crowbar out of his burlap bag and handed it to Castiel as well.

“A ghost?” Castiel repeated after they resumed walking. “How do you know what that is? According to the stories, the monsters on this island aren’t to be found anywhere else.”

Dean snorted. “If those are the stories then we’ve got some big misfortune. Quite literally. Ghosts are everywhere.”

“What do you mean, everywhere?” Castiel asked, unable to hide the discomfort in his voice. The hairs at the back of his neck tingled at what felt like an ice cold breath. He turned around anxiously.

Nothing.

“Anywhere there’s dead people, there’s ghosts.” Dean turned round to glance at him. “And lemme tell you, buddy; anywhere there’s people – there’s also dead people.”

“ _Buddy_ ,” Castiel repeated sourly, grimacing.

They walked quietly the next half hour or so, occasionally flinging their crowbars around to ward off the voices whenever they started to materialize.

“Why are you doing that?” Castiel finally asked, after Dean practically threw himself at a ghost-child to stop it from reaching out a hand to Castiel.

“Doing what?” Dean grumbled, brushed dust off his sleeves and kept walking.

“Walking so close to me that I can’t even walk straight? I’m well able of defending myself.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Dean let out, his voice colored a somewhat acidic tinge.

“You’re physically defending me-“

“Can’t have a treasure without you, can I?” Dean cut him off stiffly. Somewhere along the conversation they’d stopped walking. They stood now, face to face, the torch’s flame reflecting in Dean’s green eyes and merging into a captivating mixture of jade and fire.

“I am not a maiden in need of defending. I am grown,” Castiel argued, but the heat in his voice was weakened by the way the light danced on Dean’s face. He closed his eyes and tried to think clearly.

“I defeated you in battle,” he said, without reason, maybe. He heard Dean inhale, ready to squabble, and opened his eyes.

“Oh,” he let out, looking above Dean’s head. “Don’t move.”

“What?” Dean snapped. “Have you decided to triumph me by using witty distractions? You’re gonna tell me there’s the infinity gauntlet on the top of my head, aren’t you? I can see it on your face.”

“A gauntlet? No, Dean, there’s a spider the size of my hand right above you.”

“A palm sized spider,” Dean snored. “Yeah, and you’re Thor Odinson.” Just in case, though, he ran a hand through his hair. The spider hung just above his fingers.

“Palm sized? No.” Castiel was almost holding back a smile now at how little trust Dean had in him regarding made up spiders, and how incredibly real this spider was. “It’s the size of an entire hand, with the fingers and all.”

And then the spider landed on Dean’s head and Dean gasped weakly, comprehending his fate and clearly trying not to make an embarrassing noise.

“Get it away,” he whispered. Castiel sent a hand to his hair, but the spider climbed down the back of his head and bit. Dean lost his cool, his arms flailing around to try and fling the spider away. He stumbled over slippery gravel and fell onto his back, sliding down the tunnel in a ruckus. Castiel hurried after him.

“I’m gonna die,” he murmured when Castiel arrived at the bottom of the tunnel, where he was lying on the ground. “Oh, God.”

Castiel sat down beside him promptly, touching his neck, examining the bite. “Dean-“

“I don't wanna die!” Dean wheezed. “I regret every time I said it when Sam told a bad joke.”

“Dean, you’re…“

“Tell my family I love them!” He clutched the collar of Castiel’s shirt. “Cas, you’re like family to me.” He let out a cough and called: “The monsters are closing in! You must go without me!”

“Dean,” Castiel repeated firmly. “You’re not going to die.”

Dean blinked at him, and loosened the grip on his shirt.

“It was a non-venomous spider. Here, you’re alright.” He helped Dean up.

“Well, that’s just embarrassing,” Dean muttered, stretching his arms, feeling the back of his neck and finding that he was alright.

“Look,” Castiel said, pointing at something that attracted his attention behind them.

A few feet further down was the end of their path. It opened into a big, round cave. Drops of water dripped onto the slick surface below from a damp stone ceiling, and the wet sound of them hitting the floor echoed through the cave.

Dean and Castiel examined the cave. Its height was about forty feet, and a number of crevices in the walls led to more tunnels. At the center stood a long cylinder of stone – some sort of an ancient totem, it seemed. It was almost as high as the ceiling, and as wide as an elephant. And at the top, barely visible from their low angle, was a big, wooden chest.

“That’s it,” Dean breathed. “How in the hell are we supposed to get to it?”

“I’m… not sure,” Castiel answered honestly. “I think Edlund was expecting the other pirates to bring some sort of ladder.”

“We don’t have any ladder on the ship,” Dean pointed out, sounding somewhat concerned.

“I know. I think… I think maybe we could climb.”

They both tilted their heads at the rock.

“It’s too smooth to climb.”

“No, not the rock.” Castiel paused for a second. He felt ridiculous even suggesting it out loud. “…Each other.”

Dean let out a snort. “Climb each other?” He said. “What, Yertle the Turtle style?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a children’s tale about a turtle king who wants to see beyond his kingdom so he climbs all his turtle subjects… this isn’t the matter right now. Point is, this is ridiculous, and except that, we’re way too short to get that high.”

“It’s ridiculous, but it will work,” Castiel insisted, and bit his tongue, regretting his persuasion attempt immediately. Why was he still trying to help Dean get the treasure at this point? He should be running the other direction.

“Except that,” he added more dismally, “your crew should be here soon, if they survived. The tunnels should all lead to the same place. Two of us might not do, but a dozen surely will.”

“What do you mean, if they survived? My people are bold and spry.”

“The monsters around here are nasty.”

Dean didn’t answer that. Castiel couldn’t tell whether he was worried for his men, or if he had too much faith in them. He assumed the latter when Dean checked out the profile of his figure leaning against the wall and said,

“Did I ever tell you I’ve got a thing for brunettes?”

“Call me a brunette and I’ll break your neck,” Castiel replied, and that was the end of the conversation.

They waited a while for Dean’s crew to catch up. The paired up pirates trickled from the crevices, some wounded, some covered with monster blood, all looking different degrees of irritated. Finally, Dean gathered them round and described his plan.

“Everyone who’s hurt, sit this one out and take care of your shit. The rest are turtles,” he said, raising a few eyebrows through the crowd. “C’mon, people, the treasure’s right there. We just need to do some synchronized climbing. Everyone pick a back to climb. Except you, Crowley. Cas, you’re at the bottom because you’re the manliest.”

“Hey, why am I out?” Crowley complained.

“I know you want me to sit on your face,” Dean argued, pointing a finger at him. “No, don’t give me that beautiful grumpy face, I know you do. Not happenin’.”

“What happens when you get to the top?” Balthazar asked. Castiel eyed Lucifer suspiciously as the man looked him over and murmured to himself, ”sittable.”

“I give the treasure to the person on top. You guys get it down. Then I slide down myself.”

Castiel frowned at that. “You’ll break a leg.”

“Thanks,” Dean said, patting his shoulder.

“No, I meant you’ll actually break a-“

“Hush!” Dean called. “I am skillfull!”

Castiel doubted that but kept his doubts to himself, as he felt that if he should argue again Dean might just stick a finger against his lips and burst into a melodramatic monologue, and he’s had enough of those.

One thing Dean _was_ skillful at, however, was guiding his crowd. In a time much shorter than Castiel had expected he was standing against the colossal totem, bracing the weight of half a dozen other men as Dean climbed their limbs like ladder steps. They must have looked absurdly silly – some seven pirates sitting on top of each other, hugging their stone brace for dear life, and Dean jumping from one to the other as smoothly as butter melting on toast.

Castiel didn’t feel ridiculous. He felt trapped. If any time was a good time to pack his things and leave it was right now, and here he was, buried under a column of pirate tushies and hoping for some miracle.

In no time the chest was placed in the middle of an eager bunch of faces, and Dean was sliding down the totem using a rope wrapped around the other side of it. He landed smoothly, as promised.

“Cas, you got a key?”

Castiel’s eyes were fixed on the lock. He didn’t breathe.

“Coulda just said no, Mr. Grumpy,” Dean muttered. He placed his sword at the base of the old lock. Castiel’s hand slid to touch the hilt of his blade. Dean heaved his sword upwards.

“Wait.”

A dozen pairs of eyes rose at Castiel’s voice.

Castiel stammered. “Don’t you think we should wait and… find a safe place to hide it before we open it?”

He’d never seen a group of men looking more horrified in his life.

“Why?” Dean asked with befuddlement, looking at him as if he were a purple alien baby. “This place is perfectly safe.”

“Open the treasure!” Called Balthazar, and others joined the chant. Dean hurled his sword down and the lock fell apart. The shouts grew louder for a moment and then the group fell silent. Dean reached for the cap of the chest, and opened it.

The men gasped all at once. They peeked inside once and again, as if to make sure that their eyes weren’t deceiving them.

Dean was the first to pull himself together.

“Cas,” he said; his tone feigning composure, his eyes fixed on the chest.

“Yes,” Castiel managed to choke out. He sounded like a dying mouse.

“…Where is the treasure?”

And now he looked up at Castiel, slowly, and his eyes held a stare that Castiel was positive was the very last thing a lot of men saw before they died.

“I…” His throat was dry. His hand slipped from his blade. Could he really hurt Dean to get out of these caves alive? He had no doubt he could.

But would he?

“I can explain.”

Dean waited.

“…Actually, I can’t.”

Slowly, deliberately, Dean’s sword shifted to point at Castiel’s heart. In the silent cave, his voice was loud and clear:

“Try harder.”

Castiel had imagined this moment many times before. He’d seen Dean’s face in his mind – furious, cold, hurt. But he’d never imagined them so torn, so distraught as it were now. Like he was trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle that burned his fingertips. Castiel found the sheer lack of hate in Dean’s eyes both relieving and fairly offensive.

“We found it years ago,” Castiel started carefully, trying to watch the death sentence that rested steady in the air half a foot away from his chest. If Dean were to strike, he couldn’t risk looking away and missing his chance of blocking the blow; yet he couldn’t keep his eyes away from Dean’s.

“We?” Asked Balthazar’s ever-skeptic voice from a place that wasn’t Dean’s eyes. He noticed the rest of them now, from the corners of his eyes – all clutching their swords inside the sheaths, ready to jump at Dean’s order.

Castiel hesitated.

“The garrison,” Dean answered. Castiel nodded.

“They wanted to find the treasure and take it to the palace – which basically meant we would have gotten the gold in our next salary. The villages around us were impoverished, but they didn’t care. You must understand – children were starving. I couldn’t just… sit and watch.”

Dean’s face didn’t betray his opinion about Castiel’s story. His people, however, were starting to lose patience. One by one, they drew their swords out and pointed them at Castiel.

“It took them a while to figure out the map, enough time for me to come up with a crazy, suicidal plan. I grabbed the map and ran away. After years I finally got ahold of the gold, and I gave it to the villagers. All of it. By the time I was back, my former brothers in arms had burned down my house, and I had nothing left. I took whatever little that hadn’t turned to ash and started planning my new life.”

He finished and noticed that the look in Dean’s eyes had changed. His eyebrows were pulled together in bewilderment. Castiel pursed his lips and waited for the next question, or for the strike of a sword.

“How did you get up?” Dean asked.

“What?”

“The creepy totem,” Dean gestured with his sword at the totem, almost decapitating Metatron who stood beside him, “how did you climb up by yourself? It took us almost ten grown men to get to the top.”

Castiel shrugged. “I threw a grappling hook around the chest and pulled myself up.”

The group stared at him.

“What?” They were _pirates._ Why was this surprising?

“Alright,” Dean said slowly. “Then, why did you take the gold and left the chest up there? And what did you do with the key? There must have been a key. And why didn’t you leave when you had the chance, if you knew you were leading yourself into a dead end?”

“I was just trying to do the right thing,” Castiel said desperately. “I was naïve to think that it could somehow work itself out.” His tone, or the way he looked at Dean, made his words unambiguous.

“How… How did you end up on a military ship, getting shot at by five men, before you jumped onto the Impala?” Dean asked, but it was weak and halfhearted. His stare was skipping around the room, eyeing his men’s drawn out weapons.

“The question we should be asking is, I believe,” said Metatron carefully, “where is the gold, and how can we get to it?”

“It’s all gone,” said Castiel. Inconspicuously, he reached for a blade hidden in his sleeve. Dean, on the other hand, seemed all too puzzled and uncertain to be unobtrusive about the change in direction of his sword – from Castiel’s chest, slowly, towards his own people.

“And what village would that be,” Metatron continued, stepping towards Castiel cautiously, “the one you so kindly spread the treasure in?”

“Forget about it,” Castiel said sharply, backing away. In case he couldn’t take them all out on his own, he had one option – a steep tunnel directly behind him that sloped upwards.

By his side Dean slid closer, facing the angry group that, for the first time – exclude the day he boarded Dean’s ship and found them dressed up in ridiculous costumes –actually looked like a bunch of menacing, murderous pirates.

“Are you with me?” He asked Dean anxiously. He would hit Dean first, softly, with the shaft of his sword, and then move on to the rest of them. He could hurt this angry mob that was after him, but he’s hurt Dean enough for a lifetime. He couldn’t hurt him anymore.

“You lied to me,” Dean said, still backing away with him.

“Yes.”

“But you did it for a good reason.”

“Mostly to cover my own bottom.”

“And your bottom… It did what it did only to help people.”

“Yes. Always.”

Dean nodded. “Then I hope you’ve been practicing your fight moves, because you really suck-“

And he didn’t finish his sentence, because already his crew was charging at him and Castiel was flinging his sword around like he’s been practicing since he slipped out of the uterus.

“Cas- Jesus, will you please try to not slaughter my guys?” Dean called as Castiel stabbed Balthazar’s chest.

“Ugh,” he yelled back, having just impaled Metatron. “Sorry!”

“Whatever,” Dean muttered. He hit his men with such preciseness that they fell flat after one blow – but he barely used his sword, and they were all still alive. “That one we’re better off without, anyway.”

With a swift gesture of his head, Castiel signaled Dean to follow him and the retreated up the tunnel.

“Where do you think this leads?” Dean yelled behind him as they climbed.

“I don’t know,” Castiel called back. “Up?” He thought he heard Dean mutter _‘thanks’._

“I don’t have a plan,” he called after a few minutes of running, hearing a ruckus of shouts and hurried steps below them. Dean’s lot must have recovered and resumed the chase. The muscles in his legs were beginning to burn.

“We need to get out of these caves,” Dean answered. “And to the ship, somehow. And grab Sam.”

“And from there?”

“We’ll figure something out. We always do.”

The sound of footsteps behind them became stronger, and they picked up their pace.

“I see light,” Castiel shouted. And then they were out in the open, at the top of the mountain. They halted to a stop, for a few more steps would have had them thrown off the cliff.

“What now?”

Right below them, the cliff broke into an abyss that ended in waves crashing into rock. Behind them, the angry mob was closing in.

“Now,” Dean breathed. His jaw tensed as he looked down and tried to measure the distance they’d be falling through, or maybe their chances of survival. His dear, beautiful face was open with awe. “Now we jump.”

“Wait,” Castiel said when he took a step forward. “Dean, I’m sorry. For everything.”

“Hey,” he replied, one side of his lips rising into a faint, gentle smile. “You were my new treasure.”

Dean’s crew emerged from the tunnel and started running towards the two of them. They turned their backs to the pirates, and looked at the sea.

“Take my hand,” Dean said.

And they jumped.

**Author's Note:**

> A big thanks to Kristine, who made the wonderful artwork at the top! [Check her out](https://www.instagram.com/inserttextposthere/)!
> 
> Here's a list of all the non-original lines I took from outside of SPN. Afterwards it I will put a short list of my inspirations for this fic, since they were a major part in constructing its nature and vibe.  
> Reference list: (in order of appearance)  
> \- "Last chance, fancy pants": From the movie Django Unchained  
> \- The line 'he was outgunned, outmanned. Outnumbered and outplanned': From the musical Hamilton ("we are outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, outplanned")  
> \- The line 'He coughed unconvincingly. “I’m sick.”': From the movie Mean Girls  
> \- The line "I am not a maiden in need of defending. I am grown": From the musical Hamilton  
> \- The infinity gauntlet: a reference to the Marvel movie Infinity War  
> \- The line "yeah, and you’re Thor Odinson": a reference to the Marvel character Thor  
> \- Yertle the Turtle: an actual Dr. Seuss children's book  
> \- The line “Did I ever tell you I’ve got a thing for brunettes?”: from Disney's movie Tangled  
> \- The line "you were my new treasure": another reference to Tangled ("you were my new dream")
> 
> Inspiration: Uncharted (video game series); Graceling (book series); Megamind (best movie ever)


End file.
